The present invention relates to combine harvesters.
More particularly, it relates to a combine harvester which has a mowing table with an inclined feed conveyor for transporting the mowed product, a tangential or axial threshing mechanism located after the inclined conveyor, and at least one separating device which is located in a product flow direction after the inclined conveyor and operates in accordance with the principle of an axial flow. Each of the separating devices has a rotatably driven separating rotor provided on its periphery with spiral-shaped or helical transporting elements, and surrounded by a housing which is composed of an upper cover hood and a lower separating basket. The transporting elements of each of the separating rotors are provided with radial slots which are located within a certain region of a transporting path. When needed, they cooperate with stationary chopping knives arranged in a partial region of the housing, and deflector elements are arranged inside the cover hood and in some cases on the separating basket for guidance of the threshing product.
Combine harvesters of the above mentioned general type are known in the art. One of such combine harvesters is disclosed for example in the German patent document DE 196 00 390 A1. In this combine harvester, the deflector elements are placed inside the housing and extend exclusively over the region which is not utilized for chopping of the straw. Therefore in this region the throughflow of the threshing product is no longer performed continuously in all cases, so that it can lead to congestions and as a result to an increased torque for driving the separating rotor or both separating rotors.